Of All The People In All The World uses grains of rice to bring formally abstract statistics to startling and powerful life.

Each grain of rice = one person and you are invited to compare the one grain that is you to the millions that are not.
Over a period of days a team of performers carefully weigh out quantities of rice to represent a host of human statistics

- the populations of towns and cities
- the number of doctors, the number of soldiers
- the number of people born each day, the number who die
- all the people who have walked on the moon
- deaths in the holocaust

The statistics are arranged in labelled piles creating an ever changing landscape of rice. The statistics and their juxtapositions can be moving, shocking, celebratory, witty and thought provoking.

The show adapts to its setting: the country, city and building it is in.

The amount of rice used varies according to which version is performed, Of All The People In All The World: UK is a standard small version using 1,000Kg of rice to represent 60,000,000 people. Of All The People In All The World: Europe at 12,000Kg is an example of a medium size version. So far there has been a single presentation of Of All The People In All The World in which the whole world's population was represented by 104 tons of rice in Stuttgart.

The show responds to the interests and suggestions of its audience. In 2004 a version of the show called Plague Nation was developed for use in schools focusing on epidemics and the history of vaccination. Workshops are organised around the show and for these teacher packs and student worksheets are available.

From this page you can link to images and descriptions of all presentations of the show. You can read about the origins of the show, working on the show and more about the world version in a series of essays. Your questions may be answered in the show's own FAQ section and you have the opportunity to submit your own statistics for the show (or to read what other people are submitting via the Stat Centre button.

"The knowledge gained is astonishing."
SUEDDEUTSCHE ZEITUNG

"Part amused, part amazed, one wanders through the hall, looks marvels and understands."
NEUE ZUERICHER ZEITUNG

Below are two short videos from the show. The first was made by the Wesleyan University in Connnecticut, following the show's visit there as part of their Feet to the Fire: Exploring Global Climate Change from Science to Art season. The second is a short promtional video below was filmed in Newcastle in June 2006

The short answer is that we wanted to understand how many people there are in the world. We knew the number was 6,200,000,000 but we didn't know what this really meant. We thought if we could look at 6,2000,000,000 objects gathered together then that might help us understand.

We needed to find a substance that came in regular size grains so we could use a grains per gram calculation. We needed grains that were small, cheap, robust and which wouldn't roll around. Rice qualified in all these ways. It also has powerful resonance being a staple food for much of the world and looking vaguely humanoid in close up.

What happens to the rice afterwards?

We own 1 ton of rice, which we reuse for all our small UK gigs. Elsewhere promoters supply our rice, part of the contract is they satisfy us that they will dispose of the rice ethically. For all large versions the show in Europe the rice has been taken back by the supplier for washing and resale. Smaller versions usually see the rice given away to charity or for animal feed.

Couldn't you feed lots of starving people with this rice?

Rice from the UK version cost £400 would keep a small Chinese Takeaway going for two and a half months. On a global scale this is insignificant. The World's food crisis centres on an unequal distribution of wealth not a lack of food. We dispose of our rice ethically (see the question above).

How do you choose your statistics?

Our choice responds to the show's location and what is going on in the world at that time. We look to represent as broad a range of human activity as we can. Individual performers choose what statistics to place where in consultation with their colleagues and with regular input from visitors to the show.

Where do you find your statistics?

We draw statistics from newspapers, journals, academic books, the television, radio and internet. Sometimes we count them ourselves and on other occasions we ask people to supply them for us. We only use statistics from sources we have confidence in. Occasionally we place Official and unofficial versions of the same statistic together as an acknowledgement that we cannot take these numbers at face value.

How do you count the rice out?

We counted a large number of grains onto delicate scales and took an average for the number of grains per gram. We tend to count numbers up to 200 by hand and weigh out anything larger. Although this is inevitably an approximation so are most of the statistics themselves. Ultimately the show is about proportions, this beside that, using the same formula for all statistics keeps these proportions accurate.

How does this work, I can't be in two piles at once?

Occasionally people think the show is flawed because they belong in two piles at once but shouldn't be counted twice. The simplest way to think of it is to consider the grains of rice as actors, in the UK version the cast is the population of the UK, but more than one rice-actor could play you at the same time in two different piles.